Two announcements in the past fortnight have claimed to be giant leaps towards quantum computing.

First, scientists in Australia said they had target="_blank" href="http://www.itpro.co.uk/623923/toshiba-brings-quantum-computing-one-step-closer">invented an Entangled Light Emitting Diode in another progression towards the supercomputers of the future.

IT PRO spoke to researcher Dr Andrew Shields, who leads the Quantum Information Group at the

That presents something of a problem as to how we can increase computing power beyond 10 years from now. The quantum computer is one possible solution to that problem. I think that is why so many people are interested.

What will quantum computers be capable of in the future?

In the future [a quantum computer] could do all sorts of things. A quantum computer [would have] massive processing power because it can do computational tasks in parallel and can solve problems which are virtually intractable using an ordinary computer.

In the shorter term, what it might do are things like [act as a] a quantum simulator. A quantum simulator is a quantum computer which basically simulates another quantum system. This could help us simulate a new molecule or new nano material and thereby [help us] design better materials in the future.

We know quantum computers are very good at search problems and also for finding the primes of large numbers, which is an important [area] for cryptography.